Usually, a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material contains a light-sensitive silver halide emulsion, as well as a so-called dye forming coupler that is capable of forming a dye upon reaction with an oxidation product of a color developing agent.
As cyan couplers, phenols and naphthols have been in wide use, some of these products being described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,309,929, 2,423,730, 2,474,293, 2,772,162 and 2,895,826, and Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) No. 65134/1981.
The cyan dye images formed from such phenols or naphthols, however, incurs a serious problem in color reproduction. An absorption spectrum of a cyan dye formed thereby shows a disorderly boundary on the shorter wavelength side and has an undesirable irregular absorption in the green portion and in part in the blue portion. As a solution to this problem, it has been a usual practice, in negative films, to compensate the irregular absorption by masking using colored couplers. This practice, however, incurs the defect of retrogression in sensitivity. With respect to sensitive materials in reversal system, as well as with a color paper, color reproducibility remains impaired because of lack in effective means for the compensation.